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The arrogance of most of the comments reflects exactly the type of smug self-appointed superiority that has led to widespread resentment of the left among reasonable people. To the extent that such views correspond to those at Google, they vindicate the essayist’s claims about the authoritarian and repressive atmosphere there. Even the response by Google’s new VP in charge of diversity simply ignores all of the author’s arguments, and vacuously affirms Google’s commitment to diversity.

In 2014, Google started publishing employee demographic data and pledging to invest in major initiatives to recruit a more diverse workforce, spending at least $265 million on the efforts.

Despite Google and its parent company’s public statements in support of diversity in technology and multiple outreach and community programs, it seems to have made little headway since it began publishing its workforce demographic data three years ago.

Ironically, the media response to the memo simply validates the now ex-employee’s point when he writes:

unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber

and

silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.

What is left unsaid in most of the coverage is that the memo’s ideas are also a deadly threat to thousands of jobs in the “diversity” industry (e.g., Google’s VP of Diversity). People whose jobs depend on an uncritical acceptance of an ideological position naturally react badly to any critique of it.

Original memo: http://diversitymemo.com/#reply

Which is to say that, regardless of one’s view on the contents of the memo, the ostensibly “neutral” position is not likely to be a neutral position at all. Or, put another way: One can’t avoid delving into this in depth by contending bluntly that the details don’t matter, when, for better or worse, they absolutely do. As I wrote a couple of years ago, I am quite happy for private companies to respond to their customers and the culture in which they exist, and I do not wish to impose any laws that would prevent them from doing so. But to acknowledge that this is what they are doing is merely to move our point of inquiry from the companies themselves to the forces that inform their decisions. There is a severe imbalance in those forces, and one that’s worth remarking on. There’s no neutral position here, I’m afraid.

Do we find that “countries that lack gender equity in school enrollment” and “stereotypes associating science with males” have fewer women in tech?

No. Galpin investigated the percent of women in computer classes all around the world. Her number of 26% for the US is slightly higher than I usually hear, probably because it’s older (the percent women in computing has actually gone down over time!). The least sexist countries I can think of – Sweden, New Zealand, Canada, etc – all have somewhere around the same number (30%, 20%, and 24%, respectively). The most sexist countries do extremely well on this metric! The highest numbers on the chart are all from non-Western, non-First-World countries that do middling-to-poor on the Gender Development Index: Thailand with 55%, Guyana with 54%, Malaysia with 51%, Iran with 41%, Zimbabwe with 41%, and Mexico with 39%. Needless to say, Zimbabwe is not exactly famous for its deep commitment to gender equality.